The present invention relates to an automatic paper sheet feeding device for use with a copying machine.
The conventional automatic paper sheet feeding device for a copying machine generally has a structure such as shown in FIG. 1, in which paper sheets b housed in a cassette a is fed by a feed roll d one by one to a feeding passage e connected to the copying machine (not shown) with the aid of a snubber c. The paper sheets b in the cassette a are supported by a base plate f biased upwardly by a spring g and the uppermost paper sheet is urged against the feed roll d.
Thus, at a time when the cassette a is to be inserted into the copying machine, the level of the front end of the uppermost one of the paper sheets b housed in the cassette a is higher than the lowest end of the feeding roll d.
Therefore, the front edges of some of the paper sheets b hit the roll d every time when the cassette a is inserted into the copying machine causing those edge portions to be deformed, resulting in a malfunction of the subsequent feeding operation.